Comment: The following article appeared in Kathimerini English Edition of Athens on 29 April 2003.

After six days, Cyprus crossings up to 100,000

Denktash wants talks with Papadopoulos on human flow

[Caption] Thousands
of Greek Cypriots queue to enter the Turkish-occupied north at the
Ledra Palace checkpoint in Nicosia yesterday. For the past six days,
Cypriots have been mingling freely for the first time since 1974.

More than 25,000
Greek Cypriots had crossed into the Turkish-occupied part of the island
by 7 p.m. yesterday, through the three open border crossings, according
to authorities in Nicosia.

Over the past six
days, since the Turkish-Cypriot administration opened a border crossing
at Nicosia, a total of 100,000 people have crossed the border. Of
these, 75,000 were Greek Cypriots, eager to get a glimpse of homes,
towns and villages abandoned since 1974, when the invading Turkish army
drove some 200,000 Greek Cypriots away from their homes in the northern
third of the island.

Greek- and
Turkish-Cypriot leaders yesterday welcomed the crossings across the UN
buffer zone.

“This coming and
going is a good thing. The people should get to know each other,”
Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash told the Turkish Anatolia news
agency. “We are trying to create a basis for peace,” he added.

Denktash
yesterday also called on Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos to meet
with him in order to discuss the issues arising from the movement of
people.

Denktash has been
increasingly criticized by Turkish Cypriots for undermining efforts
toward reunification of the island; many Turkish Cypriots are also angry
at Denktash for torpedoing their chance to join the European Union, as
the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus will, in May of next
year.

Denktash, who was
thought to have allowed the border crossings in response to his
people’s frustration, is now trying to turn them to his advantage by
using them to secure recognition for his regime. His invitation to
Papadopouolos, to which he had received no reply last night, was part of
this strategy.

Denktash’s son,
Serdar, said yesterday that the heavy traffic between the Republic of
Cyprus and the occupied north necessitated bilateral trade relations
between the two entities. He also said he would welcome allowing Greek
Cypriots to spend a night in the north.

The
Turkish-Cypriot breakaway state, proclaimed in 1983, has only been
recognized by Ankara, which maintains a 40,000-strong army there.

Greek-Cypriot
politicians have preferred to draw parallels with the collapse of the
Berlin Wall in 1989.

“The freedom of
movement ushers a peaceful revolution by the two communities that
shatters the myth propagated by Denktash that the Greek and Turkish
Cypriots cannot live together,” said Nikos Anastasiades, the leader of
the Democratic Rally, the main Greek-Cypriot opposition party.

The largely
peaceful mixing of people from the two communities was marred on Sunday
by an attack on an elderly Turkish-Cypriot couple by the current
occupants of their former home in Limassol. One of three brothers
involved in the attack was arrested, while police are considering filing
charges against the other two.

“The state will
not tolerate such unacceptable and dangerous conduct under any
circumstance,” Cypriot Interior Minister Doros Theodorou told
reporters."